Category: Art

I took some of the Potholders for sale in my Etsy Shop outside to take their pictures.  I hung them in a few different places and took their pictures.  But I liked them best in the lilacs and birch trees.

They are all $25 each + $6 shipping for one or more.

My On The Move Potholders are an unusual combination of fabrics.  They tell the story of the seasons.  Spring and summer (the birds, nests  and dragonflies)  turning to fall (mice on the move looking for a home of the winter)  then winter (the bare birch limbs).

I can’t further explain Stork and Feathers, it will have to speak for itself.

Wild Cats is about those cats who choose to live in the wild, blending in to the world they inhabit.

After reading about Theresa Barzly’s GoFundMe on my blog, one of my readers and a member of the Army Of Good told me she wanted to give Theresa my quilt, I Became The Woman I Kept To Myself. 

She wrote it was…“A big, warm hug from the Army of Good for a remarkable and courageous woman.”

Because of the generosity and kindness of so many of you, Theresa received the funds she was asking for to help her pay her rent and the money she had to borrow for her son’s funeral.   When she received the funds  so quickly, GoFundMe automatically raised the amount from $3000 to $5000.  Theresa emailed me to let me know she hadn’t asked for more, it’s just what they do knowing that any extra money would be appreciated.  It will expire at the end of the month.

When Theresa found out that someone had bought the quilt for her, she wrote to me…

“Oh, my God are you kidding me?  Whoever is donating that quilt to me tell them thank you so much!”

Theresa has been following my blog and Jon’s since the beginning.  She found them through Jon’s books.   I have come to know her through facebook and emails, and it makes me very happy to know that she will have one of my quilts.  Something she couldn’t buy for herself, but will appreciate in so many ways.

I also want to thank the person who bought my quilt to give to Theresa.  It’s a kind, thoughtful  and generous thing to do.  It speaks to the community that has grown up around both my and Jon’s blogs.  It lifts and warms my heart to be a part of it.

I walk though the room our washer and dryer are in many times a day as I got from the house to my studio and back.

This morning I saw one of the pieces of fabric (that I didn’t end up using) for my quilt  I Became The Woman I Kept To Myself  which I had hung  on the clothes line.  It was reflected, through the window  in the glass top of the washing machine.

What I saw is the video above.

When I had the top my quilt,  I Became The Woman I Kept To Myself  laying on my studio floor it puckered in a couple of places.  I kept ironing it and tugging at it, but a pucker here or there always showed up.

I know from experience that my quilts change as they go through the process of having a layer of batting and being sewn together and tacked.

I decided to trust that, hoping for a bit or magic to intervene, if that’s what it took.

So I was delighted, but not really surprised, when I had the front, back and batting sewn together, turned inside out and hanging  from my ceiling to tack, that the quilt lay perfectly flat.

I didn’t even need to pin it as I usually do with my quilts before tying the yarn that holds the three layers together.

I used apple fabric for the backing, a suggestion of Eve in the Garden, which seemed to fit.  And red yarn ( another nod to women) to tack it.

Tomorrow I will take a picture of the quilt on the barn.  I want to get a photo of it hanging flat (it’s too long for my studio wall) so I can make it into a postcard.

I Became The Woman I Kept To Myself  is sold and I will write more about that tomorrow.

I sewed this onto the back of the quilt to acknowledge Julia Alvarez’s poem, By Accident  which the words for this quilt came from.

So much of my art is inspired by nature and each season. My “Later Summer Potholders”, come directly from the change of seasons.

The light is more intense and doesn’t last as long, the colors get deeper before they begin to fade, yet summer still lingers.

It’s a time of transition and each of my Late Summer Potholders look to the natural world, sometimes in a playful way,  to reflect this time.

My Late Summer Potholders are $25 each + $6 shipping for one or more. You can see them all and buy them in my Etsy Shop, just click here. 

I had a good long day in my studio.  No interruptions except lunch and ride into town to the postoffice, pharmacy and bank.

I hummed right along getting my quilt “I Became the Woman I Kept to Myself” to a point where the top is almost done.

Unlike most of my quilts, there was a lot of measuring and pinning to get the patterns and words just right.

But it came together more easily than I would have thought.  And when I found the  fabric, deep red with pale pink roses, to frame it all, I couldn’t have been happier.

Somehow it always happens, the fabric is there waiting, or like the pieces that Kathy sent me, they arrive just at the right moment.

“I Became the Woman I Kept To Myself“, needs just one more slip of fabric around the edge then the top will be all done.

I knew from the minute I opened the package from Kathy that I’d be using the fabric she send in my new quilt, I Became The Woman I Kept To Myself.

I wasn’t sure how, but this morning I filled the sink with water,  squirted in some Dawn dishsoap and let them soak.  Then I rinsed them and put in them in the washer to spin.   Small pieces of fabric are easier to iron when they are damp.  And they dry quickly.

Unlike a lot of the fabric I get, these  pieces already  had another life.  Each one had a line of glue on the one or both ends.  Some I was able to peel off, but most of it I just cut off before ironing it.

I laid out the strips of fabric in piles according to color and pattern on my work table to see what I would be working with.

Red was the dominant color which worked out just fine.

I took all the reds and a few of the rusty browns and dealt them into seven piles to get a good mix of patterns in each pile.

Then I arranged the fabric around each word that I had stitched on pieces of my drop cloth, on Monday.

When they were all sewn together I laid them out with the patch of old fabric pieces I sewed together last week.

Then I moved them around some more and found the perfect piece of fabric to hold them all together.

I still have to cut the fabric and sew it between all the words.  I was looking for fabric that was vibrant and outspoken, to pull the quilt out of the folksy feeling it was gravitating towards. The African fabric (that Fran sent me)  with vibrants colors and big shapes that move,  was just what I had in mind.

I can’t wait to get to my studio tomorrow and figure out how to cut the fabric and sew it all together.